In a recent article about Charlie Sheen and his personality type, a question was raised about the relationship between personality tests like the Myers Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI and disorders like narcissism. It is important to understand that the MBTI instrument is about personality preferences, how people prefer to obtain information and make decisions. There is no good or bad type of personality based on this assessment. However, one may ask if certain personality types tend to fall into psychological disorders such as being narcissistic or bipolar.

All people fall into one of the 16 Myers Briggs personality types. That does not mean that a person with a disorder like narcissism can’t also be one of these 16 types. Part of the MBTI analysis labels people as either an introvert or an extrovert. When people hear the word introvert, it can sometimes be confusing as there are differing definitions.

The MBTI explains an introvert as someone who get their energy from more of an inside world. They prefer to process information before they speak. They may have a more internal focus and be more reserved and private.

The American Psychiatric Association defines an introvert as “Withdrawal from other people, ranging from intimate relationships to the world at large; restricted affective experience and expression; limited hedonic capacity… deficit in the capacity to feel pleasure or take interest in things.”

This is where confusion comes into play. When people hear the term introvert, they sometimes think it means something that it does not actually mean. In the Myers Briggs definition, there is not a negative connotation. It is merely a preference, just as being right or left-handed is a preference.

Confusion may also be involved when discussing personality disorders such as narcissism and how that relates to MBTI personality types. In looking at research studies analyzing relationships between MBTI type and personality disorders, it becomes clear there still is a lot that we do not know about correlations between MBTI and these disorders.

There are some studies out there about personality disorders and MBTI type. However, many more need to be completed. An OxfordJournal study evaluated the role of personality in patients with substance abuse problems. The MBTI was used to evaluate the participants and their attendance of self-help group meetings. This study found, “High MBTI Extroversion and high MBTI Thinking scores also predicted attendance at self-help group meetings. When the Extroverted and Introverted types and the Thinking and Feeling types respectively were combined, as with abstinence, high scores predicted attendance at self-help group meetings.”

Currently there is speculation by some that Charlie Sheen may be bipolar. Janowsky, et al (1999) looked at MBTI in bipolar patients. These authors found that “Bipolar patients were found to be significantly more extroverted and less judging on the MBTI.” This means that people with an E and a P in their MBTI personality types were found to be more likely to be bipolar in this particular group that they studied. In my article about Sheen, I speculated that he may be an ENFP. It will be interesting to follow Sheen to see if he in fact gets diagnosed as bipolar.

Charlie Sheen acts just like my ex-husband who is an ESTP. Even my kids commented on how much they thought so saying, “dad would say that,” or “dad makes that facial expression.” ESTP’s can hold very strange beliefs and they always have to feel they are winning.

Today’s Ask Dr. Diane: What are some things I can do to improve my blogging and writing skills?

The Internet has turned lot of people into writers. Bloggers and social media junkies may have great ideas to share but may lack some writing skills that could help improve the message they want to convey. I know I make a lot of mistakes when I write. I try not to, but when you blog as much as I do, it is inevitable. I never intended to be a writer. However, I found that I liked sharing information, so writing became a means to an end. When I write my books, I use a professional editor. Not all of us can be editing experts. It could be very expensive and inconvenient to have to use an editor for every blog and social media posting. However, there are some simple things that can help to improve writing skills.

1. Don’t End Sentences in Prepositions. The problem is that many people have no idea what a preposition is. Susan Thurman, author of The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need, claims there is a trick to helping recognize a preposition. “Look at the last eight letters of the word preposition; they spell position. A preposition sometimes tells the position of something: in, out, under, over, above and so forth.” My seventh grade teacher suggested we think about a box. For example: in the box, over the box, and so forth. The following are the most common prepositions according to Thurman. Try to avoid ending a sentence with any of these words:

About

Above

Across

After

Against

Along

Among

Around

At

Before

Behind

Below

Beneath

Beside

Between

Beyond

But

By

Concerning

Despite

Down

During

Except

For

From

In

Inside

Into

Like

Of

Off

On

Onto

Out

Outside

Over

Past

Since

Through

Throughout

To

Toward

Under

Underneath

Until

Up

Upon

With

Within

Without

2. Learn to Spell without Spell Check. If you rely too much on a spell checker, you may find that words you meant to write are replaced with words that have entirely different meanings. I can’t count how many times that a student has sent me a note saying to “please excuse the incontinence”. It is best if you take the time to learn to spell correctly so that you don’t have to rely on a device that may change your intended meaning. The following are fifty of the most commonly misspelled words according to author Gary Provost of 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing:

Acceptable

Apology

Appetite

Architect

Assassinate

Autumn

Calendar

Changeable

Conscious

Correspondence

Criticism

Deceive

Discernible

Embarrass

Eminent

Existence

Fascinate

Grateful

Hygiene

Imaginable

Immediately

Irrelevant

Jewelry

Judgment

Lovable

Miscellaneous

Mischievous

Mortgage

Necessarily

Occasionally

Occurrence

Omission

Orchestra

Potatoes

Professor

Pseudonym

Quarrelsome

Religious

Reservoir

Rhythmic

Scissors

Syllable

Tragedy

Umbrella

Vanilla

Vengeance

Weird

Wholesome

Youthful

Zealot

3. Vary your sentence length. Some of my students like to write in either really long run-on sentences or overly short monotonous sentences. Try to vary your sentence length. Notice how the first sentence in this paragraph was longer and more complex. That was followed by a shorter more succinct sentence. It makes your writing easier to read if you vary the sentence length and mix it up a bit.

4. Ask yourself some questions once you have finished your draft. Does the initial paragraph let the reader know what your paper, blog or article is going to contain? Do you have needless repetition of ideas? Is your tone and tense consistent? Does one paragraph advance to the next in a smooth fashion? Does each of your paragraphs contain a topic sentence that conveys the thought you have developed throughout that paragraph?

5. Work on expanding your vocabulary. Rather than learning overly complicated words to express what you want to say, try varying the way that you say things by using a thesaurus. If you are talking about a house, perhaps refer to that house as a dwelling or a building in the next sentence. If you find that you are using the same word over and over, check out some alternatives words in a thesaurus to add dimension to your writing.

I know I am guilty of making some of these mistakes. Through practice, we can all improve our skills.

The Wall Street Journal had a couple of very interesting articles about start-up companies and their ability to obtain funding. The following list of top 50 venture-funded companies for 2011 came from one of those articles. Of particular interest to me was the ease that some young entrepreneurs are finding in terms of ways to obtain capital, should their startups be technology-based. Everyone is looking to get in on the next Facebook or Google. Entrepreneur Aaron Levie, 26, was able to raise $48 million in less than 3 weeks for Box.net, his online storage company. Check out what WSJ.com claims are the top 50 start ups for 2011 below:

Entrepreneurs are often looking for ways to promote their new businesses. On March 18, the local YOB (Your Own Business) Fair will be a place where Arizona business owners can go to find out tips to help them promote their business. I will have a booth there and I hope you will join me. In the meantime, please check out some of the top networking tips that small businesses should be considering in order to succeed:

Find out where your customers are and connect to them through social networking. It is important to network with as many people as you can, but remember to try and focus on those that have connections. Spend some time looking through contacts on LinkedIn and Twitter to see who your friends and contacts know. Get into groups on sites like LinkedIn and start threads about topics that would be of interest to people you’d like to target as customers. Become an expert in the Q&A area on LinkedIn as well. Create Facebook pages for your company and products. Link your sites together so that your updates get posted to all of your social networking sites. If you don’t know where to begin to learn how to social network, check out letsgetsocial.com for a reasonably priced series of videos to show you how to become social-networking savvy. If you have the funds, you could hire a social media expert to do it for you.

Give people something so that they will want to come to your site. If you aren’t on Youtube, you need to be. Create several short (3-4 minute) videos offering people something for free and post them on Youtube. End your video with a link to your landing page to have them sign up for a free newsletter or some other free item. This will allow you to capture their email address and get them on your mailing list in a legitimate way. The videos do not have to be fancy. A simple video camera can create all you need. You can also make a PowerPoint presentation and then overlay it with Camtasia so that your file has your voice and presentation without necessarily having to have a video of your face if that makes you more comfortable. You can upload the file to Youtube and also link to it from your website and/or blog.

Ask for word of mouth. One of the best ways to get noticed is to have people talk about your business. If you aren’t asking your satisfied customers to tell other people about you, then you are missing the boat. Happy customers are usually more than willing to tell others about you if you ask them to do so. Many just haven’t considered it until it is brought up. Ask people if they know people who could use your service. If they do, ask them if they will tell people about you and give them your cards or flyers to give to these people. Remember to ask people to do things based on assessing their level of comfort. Part of connecting with others is to understand individual personalities.

Keep records of contacts you make. If you have a software package like ACT! or Outlook, you can keep notes there. Keep a record of everyone you meet and make notes about everything you know about them. Every time you meet someone new, find out something about them that you can write down into your file and bring up later. If you can figure out their birthday from Facebook, always send them a note saying “happy birthday”. Find reasons to stay in contact. Put notes into your calendar reminding yourself to drop a note, asking if the baby was born yet or how the wedding went. Showing an interest in people draws them closer to you. Avoid promoting your products and yourself in all outgoing messages. Make it be about them or give them information that helps them and makes them want to come back to you.

Be a resource or mentor. Find ways to offer your services for free to others and it will bring people back to you later. On LinkedIn, you can answer questions in the Q&A room to help others and get recognized. Join local groups and volunteer to do things to become noticed. People remember kindness and are more willing to give out your name to others if they associate you with good things.

With the recent announcement by Warner Bros. that they will use Facebook as a distribution channel, competitors are becoming concerned. Netflix has seen a decline in their stock price (nearly $12/share today alone) and now Sony has made their own move by offering “on select digital movie purchase” features. The BaltimoreSun reported that the Sony films available on Itunes will now allow users to use, “use (1) an “Enhanced Search” that jumps “to exact spots in the movie where [a] keyword appears; (2) a “Clip & Share” function that allows them “to choose among a selection of film clips that can be shared instantly on Facebook and Twitter“; and (3) an ‘Interactive Music Playlist” that connects them “to the exact scene where a song is featured in a film” and to “the iTunes Music Store for easy purchase of soundtrack albums and select songs.”

Facebook is getting a lot of attention for the recent Warner decision. People will now be able to pay for the ability to watch movies using Facebook Credits. These credits had previously been mostly used to pay for games. Bloomberg reported, “Renting a movie through Facebook costs 30 Facebook Credits, or $3. Viewers have 48 hours to watch the films.” For more information about how to purchase Facebook Credits click here.

I’ve had a few professors in my day that made me question their abilities. However, I always assumed they were human. There is now at least one professor out there that isn’t. Technology has advanced to a point where identical versions of people can be created. A professor in Denmark has taken advantage of that. Techland.time.com reported, “in conjunction with Professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark, has created a robotic version of the associate professor that looks identical to him. If it weren’t enough that the robot looked exactly like Scharfe, it also mimics the professor’s shrugs and facial expressions.”

This particular robot will be used to study human interaction with robots to study emotional affordances. This robot is called a geminoid. According to CNews.net, “Geminoids are basically remote-controlled slave robots powered by a quiet air servo system. They mimic the facial expressions, lip movements, and body motions of a human user through motion-tracking gear and an Internet link.” A motion-capture system follows an individual’s head movements and expressions. If the operator moves their mouth, the geminoid does the same.

Myers Briggs MBTI personality assessment is one of the most reliable and valid instruments on the market. Employers and job-seekers alike have found the results to be useful to explain personality preferences and match job applicants to appropriate positions. However, in a tough economy, not everyone has the financial resources to take the actual MBTI. While, there are a lot of free MBTI-like tests on the Internet, most of them are set up to obtain your email address for future promotions. Although I highly recommend taking the actual MBTI, there are other ways to get an idea of your individual personality preferences. The following is not nearly as reliable or valid as taking the actual MBTI, but it can give you some insight as to where you fall within the personality types described by Myers Briggs.

Wikipedia does a nice job of explaining the MBTI model and Myers Briggs work. The site explains that “individuals are either born with, or develop, certain preferred ways of thinking and acting. The MBTI sorts some of these psychological differences into four opposite pairs, or dichotomies, with a resulting 16 possible psychological types. None of these types are better or worse; however, Briggs and Myers theorized that individuals naturally prefer one overall combination of type differences. In the same way that writing with the left hand is hard work for a right-hander, so people tend to find using their opposite psychological preferences more difficult, even if they can become more proficient (and therefore behaviorally flexible) with practice and development. The 16 types are typically referred to by an abbreviation of four letters—the initial letters of each of their four type preferences (except in the case of intuition, which uses the abbreviation N to distinguish it from Introversion). For instance:

And so on for all 16 possible type combinations.” In order to discover your 4 letter type, you must consider how you prefer to obtain information, what energizes you, how you make decisions and how you approach life. The chart below lists some words and phrases that may best describe your personality.

Using the chart listed above, look at the qualities listed under each of the headings and pick the letter that best represents you. You will pick either either an E or I for extroversion or introversion; an S or N for sensing or intution; a T or F for thinking or feeling; and a J or P for judgement or perception as the personality type that you feel best represents you based on the words listed below each heading. In the end you will have a 4 letter type. Once you know that 4 letter type, you can look at the chart below to look at jobs that match well with your personality preferences.

There is no shortage of information on the Internet regarding jobs that match MBTI results. Once you are able to obtain your 4 letter “type”, you can search for more information about that type online. For more information about personalities and type, check out: It’s Not You It’s Your Personality.

According to geek.com: There are many advertising companies on the Internet all wanting to offer developers and website owners the opportunity to generate revenue from ads on their sites and services. By far and away the largest and most well-known is GoogleAdSense, which Google counts as its biggest revenue stream.

Until recently AdSense was allowed on Facebook, meaning any developer wanting to support a Facebook app with adverts could use Google. However, that is no longer the case, and AdSense has been effectively banned from the social network.

There was a lot of talk in January about Goldman Sachs buying shares of Facebook. Now General Atlantic’s investment in Facebook is adding to the $65 billion dollar estimated value of the company. According to Hyperbot, the answer to the question of who really owns Facebook may surprise you. “in addition to Mark Zuckerberg, his Facebook employees and some venture capitalists is at least one Russianinvestment firm.” It may also be interesting to note that Bono is actually mentioned on the investor list.

It’s pretty hard to turn on the news lately and not see a Charlie Sheen interview. Although it is hard to determine anyone’s personality type without having them take an actual personality test, it would appear that Sheen has an ENFP personality type based on the MBTI assessment from Myers Briggs.

Sheen seems to have an extroverted or “E” personality. He takes little time to think about the answers to questions asked of him in a recent NBC Today Show Interview of Sheen. His creativity and ability to think outside the box would indicate that he is probably an intuitive or “N” personality type. It would also appear that he makes decisions based upon his own set of values so he likely has a high feeling or “F” personality type. He doesn’t seem to lack in the spontaneity department either, so he is likely a high perceiving or “P”.

If Sheen actually is an ENFP, it would make sense as this personality type does well in the arts. According to Teamtechnology.co, the ENFP enjoys, “starting discussion or activities that challenge and stimulate others into having new insights about themselves.” MyersBriggs.org describes the ENFP as, “Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency.”

Has his lifestyle changed his basic personality? According to Myers Briggs research, one’s personality preferences indicated by the MBTI do not usually change over time. That is not to say other parts of his personality may be affected, but his basic preferences for how he likes to process information probably will stay the same.

There is speculation that Sheen may be a narcissist. There is not necessarily a connection between one’s MBTI type and whether they are also a narcissist. There is some indication that Sheen has answered the question of whether he is a true narcissist. In a recent interview, Sheen used the adjective grandiose to describe himself. According to MentalHealthMatters, “Pathological narcissism is an addiction to Narcissistic Supply, the narcissist’s drug of choice. It is, therefore, not surprising that other addictive and reckless behaviors – workaholism, alcoholism, drug abuse, pathological gambling, compulsory shopping, or reckless driving – piggyback on this primary dependence. The narcissist – like other types of addicts – derives pleasure from these exploits. But they also sustain and enhance his grandiose fantasies as “unique”, “superior”, “entitled”, and “chosen”. They place him above the laws and pressures of the mundane and away from the humiliating and sobering demands of reality. They render him the centre of attention – but also place him in “splendid isolation” from the madding and inferior crowd.”

I have taken an avid interest in personality types and personality disorders. I am familiar with both Myers Briggs and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. My question is this – if someone’s personality is disordered, as in the case of Narcissism, can that personality be accurately typed? Narcissists do not have the same thought processes as the general population, and personality tests analyze thought patterns and preferences. Just curious.

That is a very interesting question. Whether one is a narcissist or not, they would still have a preferential way of processing information. For example, a person can be a narcissist as well as an introvert or extrovert.

Not much seems to be said about what appears to be Charlie Sheen’s mercurial personality traits. Borderline types are classic batterers of women. Can his violent behavior towards women be attributed solely to being narcissistic? Using The New Personality Self-Portrait as a guide, I would say that at the very least, Charlie has the Self-Confident/Mercurial portrait. From a dysfunctional perspective, then, he would be considered Narcissistic/Borderline behaviorally, which is what he has been expressing proudly for the last few months.

Charlie Sheen has the “S” stare. He is also obviously an extraverted feeler (Fe). ENFP’s are introverted feelers (Fi). You have to look passed the 4 letters and see what is introverted and extroverted. I think Charlie Sheen is an ESTP which is extroverted sensing (Se), introverted thinking (Ti), extroverted feeling (Fe) and introverted intuition (Ni).

Here is a few sentences from a reputable website about ESTP’s. “The ESTP is most comfortable when they can treat life as a big game in which they must be quick to use their skills in order to win. In such a game-playing scenario, the ESTP is most likely to be the winner, as no other personality type is as quick on their feet as the ESTP.”

They also often don’t take time to think they just respond from their extroverted sensing. Read on and I think you will be conviced that his basic personality type is the “Doer” or some call it the “Promoter.” http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ESTP_per.html